


When the Revelation Came

by Ardwynna



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 16:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11467020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardwynna/pseuds/Ardwynna
Summary: Zack lands in a church, bloody, broken, and almost dead. Aerith's attempt to help sets something in motion that will change the face of Midgar as they know it.





	When the Revelation Came

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pt_tucker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pt_tucker/gifts).



He came through the roof with a crash and a bang, and hit the dirt like a dead thing. Aerith shrieked and lunged out of the way, dodging the splinters and chunks of falling wood that came after him. She coughed and squinted into the new light as the dust began to clear.

The silence of the church was an empty hollow after the noise. Dust motes glinted gold and joined their brethren on the lump on the ground. Aerith got up and dusted herself off. Her knee was going to bruise up something lovely but it was nothing serious. What was serious was the large thing lying in her flowerbed. She took two steps forward before she realized it was human. Human, dusty, and still.

She wrenched the broom handle she used as a staff free from the rubble and reached out, poking the man on the shoulder. There was a muffled metal clang. She aimed again, a bit lower down, nudging the man in his shoulder-blade. He did not move. She stood there a while, staff in hand, pondering the next move. She walked around the flower patch to poke him from the front. 

“Hey,” she said, nudging him in the arm with the staff. Even through a length of wood, the slack give of his flesh made her skin crawl. “Oh, come on, don’t be dead, don’t be dead,” she whimpered, poking him again. A slow trickle of blood marked a red trail through the dust on his face. Aerith sighed and dropped her staff. She turned around and walked to the door. Dead or alive, there wasn’t much she could do. 

She stuck her head through the door and looked around. A dark flash moved in the corner of her eye. Aerith huffed and came out, going around to the rubble and trash on the side of the church. “Turk,” she called, looking around. “Hey, Turk.” There was no answer. Aerith rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you’re there. You’re always there. You can stop pretending.”

A dark-suited figure rose from behind a dented trashcan. The young Turk straightened his jacket and looked away. “This is against protocol.”

“Yeah, so’s watching me pee,” Aerith said. “There’s a dead body in the church. I need you to haul it away.” The Turk stared at her. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? When you’re not peeking through my bedroom window. Get to it, Turky-Turk, chop chop, before he starts to smell.”

The Turk stumbled out from behind the brick and dirt. “What do you mean there’s a body? Did a bum get in and die there in the middle of the night?”

Aerith sighed. “That’s not a nice word, and no, he just fell through the roof.” She gave the door a shove to allow for the Turk’s wider frame. She couldn’t be bothered with their names anymore. Junior Turks, they came and went. “There, see? I think he’s one of yours.”

“No, he isn’t, wait, oh.” The Turk took the walk up the aisle with Aerith following behind. “You mean ‘Shinra’, not ‘Turks’.”

“What else do you think I meant?” Aerith leaned forward and studied his face from a lower angle. “You really think of yourselves as… nevermind.” She turned back to the man lying in the dirt. “So, you gonna dump him or what?”

“He’s a SOLDIER,” the Turk said, bending down to get a look at the face under the dust. “We’ll haul him out, give him a decent burial, send his medals home to his mother, that kind of thing.” He brushed the hair out of the man’s face. “Oh, shit,” he said, stiffening, “It’s Zack Fair.”

“What, you know him?” Aerith leaned in to look over the Turk’s shoulder. The Turk was working in earnest now, checking for breaks, feeling for a pulse. 

“He’s still warm,” he said.

“Well, yeah, he only landed ten seconds ago,” Aerith said.

“I think he’s still alive.” The Turk was flipping out his phone. “Why didn’t you check?

Aerith shrugged. “Death is your business, not mine.”

“Yeah, I need a med evac below plate, at the old church. No, the target’s fine, a SOLDIER fell through the roof.” He was pacing now and paying Aerith no mind. 

She sighed and bent to gather her tools. “Target,” she mumbled, yanking her trowel out of the dirt. “Target.” She stopped to look at the man lying in the dirt. His face was ashy, and crumpled up on himself as he was it was hard to tell if he was breathing. Blood had dried dark brown on his face from the cut on his head, but he was otherwise in one piece, no limbs bending the wrong way, nothing obviously torn open. Aerith sat back on her heels and sighed. He looked young. “Got you fooled, haven’t they? I wonder if you’ll live long enough to realize what they’re really like.”

“I think there’s a pulse but if it’s there, it’s thready,” the Turk was saying. “Laceration to the head, can assume contusions and possible internal injuries. Of course, I didn’t move him.” The boards creaked beneath his feet as he turned. “Well, if he has spinal cord injuries, the Professor can still use him, can’t he?”

The trowel loosened in Aerith’s hand but she caught it before it fell. She looked up again the slack young face and the splinter-strewn black spikes above. The blood had matted the hair down in one spot and made a good crusty scab. If he recovered and scarred, his hair would hide it. If he recovered. She listened to the Turk discussing the merits of Medical over the science labs and let the trowel fall. 

She reached out one hesitant hand, glancing over her shoulder before she touched him. He was still warm, as the Turk had said. She tried to feel a pulse but wasn’t sure she was doing it right. She watched for breath, for any sign, and saw what no one else could. There was a flicker in him, something green and small, but fading. 

Dim lights were nothing below the plate, but she had only seen the actual fade once before. It had come easier to her then, in childhood, in fear. But she knew the rhythm of that heart beat pulsation, and the dissipation of the life that came with it. She choked back a cry, hand on her lips as she tried not to draw too much attention. Later. A loud whistle filled her head in the quiet church. 

The current that flowed deep beneath the earth was drawn to her own. Voices and thoughts flowed around her, with the one deep constant hum below, guiding her hands. She clasped them together and closed her eyes against the distractions around her. The voices, the Planet, lent their power and showed her what to do. 

It was all so very natural, untwisting the flow, removing a dam here and a blockage there. There were many breaks in the stream, but she was able to force the gaps closed again. Once the lifestream was able to flow, the glow began to strengthen. There was life in the man now, flowing, growing life. He would live, probably. Aerith thanked the Planet and the Lifestream for their help and opened her eyes. 

The man was still lying there, begrimed and bloody, but his eyes were wrinkling now and there was deep movement as he breathed. Clear blue eyes opened, bright as neon lights amidst the dirt on his face. There was a groan and a shudder, and he twisted and turned, straightening his leg and getting one arm out from under him. He took a few more deep breaths and slumped backwards into the dirt.

Aerith crossed her arms. “You’re crushing my flowers.”

The blue eyes flickered her way again. He looked even younger now, awake. “Sorry,” he said, putting an arm over his eyes. “I’ll move when I can, promise.”

Aerith sighed again and put her trowel away. “Take your time,” she said, “You had a nasty fall. But I’m going to water them soon so you’ll have to scoot if you don’t want to get wet.”

He cracked a crooked grin. “Just water me too, it’ll wash the dirt off.” He winced and rolled onto his side. “Uh, hey, why is there a Turk?”

Aerith only noticed the return of the silence in the moments her head was turning. The Turk was sprawled back against a toppled pew, face and knuckles white as death. “Uh, hey… are you okay?” The boy whimpered and dropped his phone. Aerith frowned and shrugged, turning back to her flowers. “Looks like he’ll live.”

“Yeah,” the young man in her flowerbed said, looking up at the hole in the roof. “Is that where I fell?”

“Yep. Came in like a rocket.” Aerith tilted her head at the old rocket piercing the wall straight through. It had given her quite a scare as a child. “Scary things come from the sky.”

“Aw, I’m not a scary thing,” the young man whined, scratching his head. “Name’s Zack.” He held out his grimy hand. “And you are?”

“She’s an angel,” said a man in the doorway. More faces and heads peeked in behind him. Aerith noticed shadows moving outside the stained glass for the first time. 

The young Turk slid from the pews and straightened himself up. “Nothing to see here, people, move on.”

“Cut the bullshit,” a woman said, moving to the fore. “We saw the light. You’re not hiding this from us, Shinra scum.”

“Light?” Aerith asked. “There was a light?” She looked back at Zack, who shrugged. 

“We saw what you did,” the man said, moving forward. The Turk put himself between the Cetra and the bottlenecked crowd spilling in through the door. “The white light, the song from heaven…”

“Heaven?” Aerith frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“And then he got up,” the woman said, pointing at Zack, who was still dusty and encrusted with blood.

“He was dead, yo,” a young kid said, stepping out for a better look. “He was so totally dead.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Zack protested and scratched his head. “I wasn’t, right?” Aerith turned back to him and tried to explain, but there was nothing she could say. She hunched in on herself, mouth opening and closing.

“I don’t know what you people thought you saw,” the Turk was saying, hands up to ward off the surging crowd.

“Thought nothing,” someone shouted. “That light was fucking everywhere. It was beautiful.” The murmurs were going up from the crowd. The Turk was losing ground. 

Aerith stepped backward into the flowerbed, bumping up against Zack. He reached up an arm to steady her and bowed his head to whisper. “Hey, want to get out of here?”

Aerith didn’t dare to nod. “Yes, please.” 

“Well, hang on.” He grabbed her hand and they hit the stairs in a mad dash as the Turk lost the fight with the crowd. “Hang on,” Zack said again. He scooped Aerith up bridal style and left the way he had come. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“We should be okay here for a bit,” Zack said, touching ground again somewhere in Sector Five. He had carried the girl most of the mad dash over the rooftops until the buildings gave way to cracked asphalt. He set her down and hunched over to catch her breath. The girl turned back to look the way they had come, wringing her long braid in her hands. “You okay?”

“I left my gardening tools,” she said. Her hands fell to the side. 

“Aw, well, you’ll get them back, right?”

Her eyes fell too. “Anything that’s not nailed down gets stolen down here,” she said. “Even people, if we’re not careful.”

“Seriously?” Zack scratched his head. “You think those people were going to...”

“I don’t know what they were going to do,” she said. “I have no idea what they were talking about.” She walked a little distance off, as if following something. “Oh, no,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “No, no, oh, please, no.” She fell to a crouch, shivering with her hands over her ears.

“Are you okay?” Zack reached out. “Hey, come on, you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong?” He touched her shoulder and the shivering stopped. She shook her head, rose and turned to face him. Zack took his hand away and stepped back a bit. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I guess.” She rubbed her arms even though it was never really too cold below the plate. “I just want to go home.”

Zack glanced around them, checking for company in the shadows of the split-levelled streets. “Where’s home? I’ll walk you.” 

She stared down at the ground a bit and dusted herself off. “That… that would be nice. I never had a bodyguard before.”

Zack laughed and offered his arm. “My lady. Uh, you have a name, I’m guessing.”

She blinked at his arm. He saw the moment on her face that it clicked, the sudden head shake, the little smile. “Aerith,” she said and took his arm with a very light grip.

“Aerith,” Zack said, feeling it out. “That’s… pretty.”

“You say it like you’re not sure,” she said, stepping down one of the tracks. “This way.”

“I’ve just never heard a name like that before,” Zack said. “Where’s it from?”

“I’m not sure, really,” Aerith said, leading him up a ramp made of old scrap metal. “I should tell you, I can’t pay you much for your services.”

“No payment necessary.” Zack scrambled ahead, keeping ahold of her hand. “I mean, I did break a hole in your roof. And crush your flowerbed. And spook the whole slums, apparently.”

“Yeah.” Aerith sighed. 

“So what’s up with that?” Zack said. “Something about a light, and singing from heaven?”

“I have no idea what they’re talking about. Watch out, the next one’s a plank. It’s kinda soft in the middle.”

“Fear not, my lady, I shall protect you from all danger!” He put an arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground before dashing across the plank with enhanced speed. She squeaked and shoved him when he set her down again.

“Next time, warn me first.”

“Next time, you say,” Zack waggled his eyebrows. 

Aerith frowned up at him. “You’re a human dust storm. Come on, let’s go. Maybe my mom will let you wash before you go back up above the plate.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Zack had not expecting much out of a slum house. But according to Mrs. Gainsborough, the house hadn’t always been in the slums. One of the last few remaining village buildings standing from before the plate was even built, she said. It had been patched up over the years, he could see the places where it looked held together with glue, but as below-plate homes went, it was a palace. Heck, his own home back in Gongaga probably only had the open sky as any advantage. 

And there were the flowers. Up the ladders and across the levels that earthquakes had made many years ago, so many bright, perfect flowers. He scrubbed himself dry with the towel Mrs. Gainsborough had lent him, then slipped into the big t-shirt they had found for him while his clothes dried near the stove. “We’re lucky we’re near the water treatment plant,” Mrs. Gainsborough had said. Their water connection was semi-homemade and technically illegal, but so far no one had seen fit to put a stop to it. 

He wrapped the towel tight around himself, checking the knot so that he wouldn’t scare the ladies and shuffled out the bathhouse door. Aerith had lent him some flip-flops for the walk back around but they were too small. He squeezed his feet in as far as they would go and walked on tiptoe. The same vibrations that had created the perfect split levels of the garden outside had also tilted the tall outhouse in the back, but the construction had been sound. It held together, tilt and all. 

He knocked twice, as instructed. Aerith let him in with an ashy face. “Your clothes are almost dry,” she said and led him into the darkened room. There was a television in the corner, an older model with the long back common below the plate. It was color at least, though the picture flickered a bit. Mrs. Gainsborough sat with a chair turned to face it, eyes glued to the screen. 

The same scene played from every different angle, caught by security feeds, cell phones and traffic cams. Above the plate more than below, ten stories up, twelve, fifty. A singular pillar of light rose up from below the plate, cutting through the mako fog to the sky. It swelled and grew outwards and swallowed everything around it. The accompanying sound became static, a multi-layered hiss. Then it faded. It was gone. 

There were interviews, here and there. 

“… a light, just a beautiful light…”

“I heard voices, they were singing. I can’t remember the tune, Gaia help me, I can’t remember the tune.”

Aerith shuddered and hunched in on herself in her seat, shaking like she had when they had first touched ground. Zack, one hand securing his towel kilt, reached across the table. “Hey, Aerith? You okay?”

She looked back at him, eyes too bright. “I don’t know. I think I did it but I don’t remember.”

“You? That?” He stared at her. “When you healed me. It was you, right?”

Her shoulder shifted in a weak shrug. “I don’t know, maybe? I didn’t see all of that.”

“But you did heal me.”

“You were pretty beat up,” Aerith said. “I thought you were dead.”

Mrs. Gainsborough turned to them both. “What exactly happened out there?”

Aerith sighed and set her head in her hand. “I told you, Mom, he fell through the roof, I tried a little healing and he woke up.”

“And then we ran,” Zack added.

Mrs. Gainsborough turned a hawk’s eye on her daughter. “Ran, Aerith?”

Aerith flicked Zack’s thigh under the table. “There was a crowd gathering. They said there was a light.”

“They thought she brought me back from the dead,” Zack said. Aerith flicked him again. He kept smiling.

Mrs. Gainsborough at least, did not seem pleased. “Aer,” she began.

“I didn’t mean for it to turn into all that,” Aerith said. “I didn’t know it could.”

“Yeah, that’s some materia, though,” Zack said, “you thought about renting it out to Shinra? You know, for research.” Both women looked at him, and he felt it down to his awkward wet flip-flops that he had done something wrong. “What? I mean, it’s right there in your ribbon. I’ve never seen one so pale before. What’s it called?”

Aerith shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t do anything.”

“But it patched me up.”

“I patched you up,” Aerith said with a sharp bob of her head. “The materia doesn’t do anything.”

Zack scratched his head with his free hand. “But if you patched me up… with magic? Then… you’re magic?”

“Some people have more than others, that’s nothing new,” Mrs. Gainsborough said, sweeping off to the kitchen. “Your clothes should be dry by now.”

They weren’t, not fully, but Zack took the hint. Aerith walked him a ways down the path before he left but there were no long goodbyes. Not with her mother watching at the door. He stood a while and waved as Aerith walked back. She turned once, midway, and waved back. Zack wriggled his toes inside damp socks and wished for something, but he was not sure what. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

“He’s Shinra,” Elmyra said, bolting and chaining the door. Aerith nodded and slumped into a chair, leaning over the table. 

“I didn’t mean to bring trouble,” she said. “I didn’t know it was going to turn into that. It sure didn’t feel like that on my end.”

Elmyra went over to turn the volume down on the TV. The interviews were all the same and the video feeds had only the hissing anyway. “Who else saw?”

Aerith looked up through her bangs. “The whole sector?”

“Aerith.”

“And a Turk. The young redheaded one who you caught peeking at me in the shower.”

“That son of a-“ Elmyra caught herself. “Well, no extra harm if he saw, I suppose. Nothing they don’t already know.”

Aerith leaned over the table with her chin on crossed arms. “You don’t suppose they’ll send Tseng down again, will you?”

“If they do, you just tell him ‘no’ like you always do, and I’ll threaten him with a broom, like I always do, and it will be fine.” She stroked Aerith’s hair. 

Aerith turned her head sideways and looked at her mother. “What if this time he doesn’t ask?”

“I’ve got a broom, girl, don’t you worry.”

Aerith smiled to make Elmyra feel better. The silent interviews playing on the screen had her feeling anything but. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

Zack fully expected a complete medical examination on his return to headquarters. What he got was tossed in jail. Well, not jail, exactly. ‘Holding’, they called it. A little bare-bones cell on the lab floors, not even the military one. He lay back on the steel cot and closed his eyes against the harsh light above. At least it wasn’t the Turk pen. He had heard stories. 

There was a medical after all. Hojo himself came down to oversee it. He never said a word to Zack, but instructed the medics to take more samples. Zack blushed when they sent him behind the screen with a magazine and a cup, but he drew a line with two swinging fists at giving up a tooth. They shot him up full of something and punched a bit out of his sternum in recompense, with some snide reassurance that bone would grow back. 

They put him back in his cell with a few bandages on his scrapes, and a note that the mild astigmatism on the right according to his recruitment record seemed to have disappeared. Zack had never figured out what astigmatism was but he couldn’t see any reason to miss it. 

Then the Turks came. “Do I get dinner sometime?” Zack asked as Cissnei hauled him from the room. “It’s been hours, come on, I’m starving.”

“Tseng will be conducting your exit interview from here,” she showing him an unmarked grey door. 

“How ‘bout a sandwich? I’d be good with a sandwich. Or a soda?”

Cissnei looked him in the eye for a flash and sighed. She pressed the control for the door to slide open and ushered Zack inside. 

It was like something out of the movies, a cold steel room with a cold steel table, an unfriendly sort of chair, a bright light in his face, and Tseng on the other side. At least Zack assumed it was Tseng. Hard to tell with the light in his eyes. SOLDIER pupils narrowed to near points, filtering out the extra till he could make out the outline of a head that looked Tseng-like enough. 

Zack grabbed the back of the chair and spun it around before he sat. “So I guess I should be glad you’re not handcuffing me to the table or anything.” He squinted at the Tseng shape across the table. “You’re not, right?”

“No, Zack, no cuffs.” Definitely Tseng. “There are a few questions we’d like to ask you, nothing more. Please answer honestly, and to the best of your ability.”

Zack’s vision adjusted enough to make out the shape of two other Turks standing behind the man. Probably Rude from the height of one. But not Reno. Zack frowned and covered it with a squint. “Shoot, man. Or not, I mean, not Turk-style, ‘kay?”

“Alright, let’s begin,” Tseng said. A hand reached out of the shadow to hit the button on a recorder, adding a red light to the glow. “How did you first encounter Specimen C002-AG, possibly known to you as ‘Aerith Gainsborough’.”

Zack squinted some more. “'Specimen'’s a real funny way to talk about a girl, Tseng.”

“The question, Zack.”

Zack huffed. “I got knocked off the plate on my last assignment. I fell through the roof of an old church in the slums. Next thing I know, I’m waking up and there she is.”

“You have had no previous contact, then?”

“Hey, believe me, I’d remember meeting a girl that cute.” Zack’s sight had adapted enough to see Tseng’s eyebrow twitch.

“You state that you woke up. Do you recall anything of what happened while you were out?”

“What do you expect me to remember when I’m asleep? Or out cold. Or maybe dead, I dunno. I fell, I went through a roof, I woke up.”

Rude shifted slightly in the background. Zack began to tap his foot under the table.

“So you recall nothing of the time in between?”

Zack shrugged. “I might have dreamed. But I don’t remember my dreams all that often.”

“So you recall no lights?”

“You mean that stuff on the tube? Dude, no, I was out cold for all of it.” They were probably marking him down as having an attitude problem or something. “Can I get a sandwich? I’m starving. And grumpy. You won’t like me when I’m grumpy.” He heard Tseng sigh.

“Is increased hunger a symptom of your experience?” Tseng asked.

“Well, yeah, seeing as my experience is not eating for over twelve hours.” Zack’s belly gave a loud and helpful growl. “See?”

Rude shifted again. “I have a lollipop in my pocket, Sir.”

“You can give it to him afterwards,” the other Turk said. 

“Why do you- nevermind.” Tseng leaned in. “Are you aware of what Specimen C002-AG did to you while you were… asleep?”

With the dark all around and the light right in his face, and the shadowy figures gaining slow colors with time, Zack realized they had come to something important. “She healed me? She probably had materia or something. I’m just guessing, man, I was asleep for the whole thing.”

“And after you woke up, what happened next?”

Zack felt all the energy leaving him. “Some people came into the church talking about a light and she looked uncomfortable. I figured she just didn’t like crowds and all, if she’s hanging out by herself in some old church, you know. She said she wanted to leave, so I got her out the back way and walked her home.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, her mother let me use the bathroom to clean up, but then I came right back here. Hey, don’t you all want to hear about Angeal?”

“We will deal with First Class Hewley in good time, Zack. Thank you for your cooperation. You may go.”

“What, that’s it? No ‘Good cop, bad cop’? No ‘I can’t handle the truth’?” The girl Turk tittered. 

Tseng made a slow controlled breath. “You can go, Zack.”

“Okay,” Zack said. He reached up to the lamp and turned it down out of his face. “Can I get that lollipop now?”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Aerith stayed inside for four days straight. She kept the curtains drawn tight and wouldn’t even tend the flowers around the house. She kept peeking at the windows, looking for dark suits mostly, or anyone who did not belong on their walkway. She and Elmyra watched the evening news together. 

“It will blow over,” Elmyra kept saying, brushing her daughter’s hair. “Shinra will kill the feeds and cover it all up and life will go back to normal.”

Aerith passed the comb and ribbon and wondered if that was true. “I wonder how come Tseng hasn’t shown up yet.”

“Probably busy with the damage control,” Elmyra said, taming brown waves. “He may be a nuisance, but it does keep the attention off our backs, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.” Aerith thought of the hungry eyes and reaching hands of the crowd spilling through her church door. She was not sure she could go back there soon. Maybe never. The slum crowds had seen it. Had seen her. Shinra could not change that. 

On the fifth day she ventured out for bread with her mother’s old shawl wrapped around her head. There was a corner store that sold the nearly stale bagged loaves two gil cheaper, and it was a day or two before the fresh delivery. She held her staff, her sad little stick, firm and prominent in her hands. She managed not to jump at every sound but only because she expected something terrible from every corner. Turks, plenty of them, or people talking about angels. 

She made her purchase without trouble, and if the shopkeeper thought something was odd about her getup, at least the woman had the decency not to remark on it. Aerith put the loaf in her basket and steeled herself for the walk back home. Her will was weak. Her feet turned where they wanted and she let them, pretending she could not help herself. The church was there and there was no one outside. The door was ajar. She went in. 

There were people inside, gathered, praying. Some of them had lit candles. Some of them sang, or tried. They were reverent, and festive, and quiet but still too noisy for her, and in the midst of it all her flowerbed stood half-plucked of the flowers with a scrawled cardboard sign against picking them stuck in the dirt on a bit of old pipe. Aerith felt her eyes burning. She slipped out the door and ran back home to fling herself on her bed and cry and cry until her mother came home. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

There were seven bombings in the next month, only four the month after. Avalanche recruitment had surged, many people taking the light as a divine sign that change was coming, and security had doubled in response. The TV still ran clips of Holy Day, as someone had dubbed it. Shinra had declared it the result of plumbing a particularly rich stream of mako, one that promised prosperity for all for a long time to come. 

Or a long time coming, as was the general opinion in the streets. There were more Avalanche recruitment flyers on the streets, some open, coded for slumfolk. Aerith no longer went to her church. The church, she reminded herself. It had never really been hers. She stuck to the garden in her yard for all her peace and quiet, even though there were no shielding walls to ward off prying eyes. She went out on necessary errands only and tried her best not to stare at the new graffiti on the walls, the single columns of white paint, the silver music notes hanging without lines, and one in particular, a brown-haired young woman praying, with a golden halo and white wings growing out of her back. Shinra had called the incident a mako flare and the slums refused to believe.

Reno showed up before Tseng did, not with the usual questions and insistence, just checking. He looked actually concerned but Aerith was beyond trusting Turks. She was beyond trusting anyone. The church was still crowded, the few times she dared to look in, the altar defiled with shrines to a mortal. She heard whispers on the streets about raising someone from the dead. 

“It will all blow over,” Elmyra said when another bombing stopped the trains. “It will all blow over,” she said, when stocks of candles ran low because people were building shrines. “It will all blow over,” she said, when some enterprising worshipper stole the flowers around the house in the middle of the night. 

Aerith stayed inside for three days more before she ventured out to the garden. She could hear the Planet and the soft chorus of voices, and feel the growing stream in the bulbs left deep beneath the soil. She walked among the bent leaves and the broken stems and didn’t dare call to them. Not again. 

And then the SOLDIER boy came back to visit.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Elmyra came home and found them sitting at the table together, sipping cheap juice mix from plastic cups in silence while the news played in the background. “Hello, Mrs. Gainsborough, let me take those bags.” The chair screeched and clattered on the uneven floor as Zack rose. 

Elmyra let him help, having a conversation with Aerith that was entirely in the eyes. Aerith shrugged and helped Zack unload and unpack. “Still watching the news, Aerith?” Elmyra asked. “There’s been nothing new in a while.”

“There’s plenty new,” Zack said from the kitchen, holding flour and cans for Aerith to put away. “Avalanche numbers are up, threats are rising. There’s even a new religion in town.”

“New religion?” Aerith said, dropping the tinned sausage. 

“Yeah, below the plate mostly, but it’s up on top too. People talking about a glowing angel and signs from the Planet. Didn’t you hear? I mean, the news won’t show it but I’m pretty sure you must have seen it around. Shinra never could keep things quiet down here.”

Aerith busied herself rotating cans of carrots and peas. “I don’t go out much these days.”

“She’s afraid of being recognized,” Elmyra stage-whispered, shoving a sack of flour into Zack’s arms. Aerith bowed her head. 

“Aw, would that be so bad?” Zack said. “Everybody’s wondering what really happened. Don’t you want to tell them?”

Aerith set down the last can on the counter. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She spun around. “Because I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I thought it was just small magic, the natural kind, but it was something else, and I don’t know what it was or where it even came from. And I don’t want people knowing.”

Zack stayed where he was and gave her some space. “How come?” 

“Because things get weird when people know.” Aerith went back to stacking cans again, making as much noise as possible. Zack wandered back into the tiny livingroom to get the last of the goods. He held his arms out like a basket for Elmyra to pile on as much as possible. 

“Um… Shinra knows, right?”

Elmyra glanced at Aerith making a racket in the kitchen. She nodded. “Shinra knows. Did they tell you?”

“That she’s a specimen?”

Elmyra sniffed. “Specimen. Disgusting way to talk about a person. They’d say prisoner if they had the guts. And they keep trying to get her back.”

Zack glanced at Aerith too. “Prisoner? She escaped?”

“She and her mother. Her birth mother.” Elmyra shook her head. “The poor woman didn’t make it after what they did.” 

Zack eyed the chair, but there were still things to put away. He stumbled back to the kitchen and watched Aerith pack the last of the cans away. She moved more than she had to, jerky and stiff, and didn’t meet him in the eye. Zack thought of the easy smile she had had for him before they had spotted the Turk, before the people had come crowding in. 

“Hey, what happened to the flowers outside?” It was absolutely the wrong thing to say. 

“I don’t feel so good,” Aerith said. “I’m going up for a nap.”

“Aerith,” Elmyra said. 

“I’ll come down for dinner,” Aerith said, and fled up the stairs. Elmyra did not even bother to watch her go, nudging Zack to follow her back into the kitchen. 

“She’ll come down when she smells the food,” Elmyra said. “Get me some green beans and a can of spam.”

Zack chopped onions and noted that his eyes did not water over them anymore. Or maybe the onions weren’t all that fresh. He shrugged and kept cutting, hearing Angeal criticize over his shoulder about the sizes being all wrong. Elmyra fried them up with slices of spam and sprinkled the greyish green beans over, giving them one turn in the pan before it was done. She chatted to him over the sound of hissing fat, offering instructions for more than chopping food. The whole thing barely took more than half an hour and sure enough, Aerith came tromping down the steps as soon as the smell of frying preserved meat began to rise. She got halfway down before she saw Zack setting the table. She took the rest of the stairs at a more stately pace, with her chin up and her hand on the rail. She looked like a princess.

She was quiet during dinner, and resigned. Zack found his eyes straying from his plate, his ears tuning out Elmyra’s polite conversation. Aerith did not push her food around the plate. Slum children learned early not to play that way. Zack cleared the table when they were done and offered to do the dishes but Elmyra wasn’t having it. She shooed him back to the table with a pointed glance. 

Zack took the seat next to Aerith just as she was shoving her own chair back to go. “Hey, uh, want to go out?”

Aerith reared back and stared at him. “Out?”

“Yeah, out,” Zack said, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s still early and we could… go for a walk?”

Aerith twisted her fingers in her lap. “Not like a date or anything, right?”

Zack felt his mouth go dry. “Uh… not if you don’t want it to be. We could just walk?”

She glanced up at him again, sideways through brown bangs. “Where?”

“Anywhere you like,” Zack said. He tried and failed to stop the shrug. “You know these parts better than I do. You could show me around.”

“Oh, go on, Aer,” Elmyra called from the kitchen. “You’ll be perfectly fine out there with a SOLDIER at your side.”

“Really?” Aerith leaned to look past Zack. “Mom, he’s a SOLDIER.”

“Better than a Turk.”

Aerith frowned up at Zack as if the whole thing was his fault. Hell, it hadn’t even been his idea. He swallowed, then offered his arm and an attempt at a grin. “My lady?”

Aerith rolled her eyes and went to the door. “Let’s go.”

They were clear of the house and wandering around the quake-cracked streets again. Zack could not begin to make sense of the tunnels and trails but Aerith knew them by heart. She refused his hand when he tried to help her across the shaky, makeshift bridges, managing better in her long skirt than he did for all his SOLDIER balance. 

He somersaulted his way off one shifting ramp, alarmed by the creak of the metal. Aerith jumped out of the way, holding her skirts down while she stared at him. “Do all of you jump like that?” she asked. 

“Yeah, it’s a SOLDIER thing,” Zack said, and flexed some muscle at her with a grin. 

Aerith folded her arms and shook her head. “Not so sure you’re better than a Turk.”

Zack slumped and toed the dirt. “What do you need a Turk for, like a bodyguard or something?”

She sighed and looked away. “Or something.”

“Complicated, huh?” Zack looked up into the artificial lighting that served for sun under the plate. It was not the dimming time yet but it was still softer than the interrogation lamp. Enough to function, not to thrive. 

She led him by a playground first. It was shoddy and old and deserted, and Zack just knew he had to make an ass of himself. “Whoohoo, playground,” he hollered and tried to go down the slide. 

“Zack, you’re too big,” Aerith said.

“I’m a big kid, all my seniors say so,” he said from inside the giant cat head. His legs were out the mouth now and he was shifting the rest of him down. 

“I don’t mean your age, I mean your… you’re stuck now, aren’t you?” 

Zack’s legs flopped around a little more and went still. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Aerith rapped on the head to make it echo like a giant drum inside. “Serves you right. Just come back out the way you went in.” She glanced around for dark suits in case they needed help pulling. 

But Zack was fine. His legs retreated and Aerith heard him thumping around inside. He had to angle himself and make a half twist to get back out the ladder side, but he was out with minimal fuss. “I don’t get it,” he said, scratching his head. “How come I fit in the ladder but not the slide?”

“The slide hole is smaller,” Aerith said, going around to the back. “The face narrows it. Come on, you can still climb up.” She scaled up the side and perched herself on the top of the whole thing.

Zack grinned up at her. “You look like a cherry on a cake.”

Aerith glanced down at the plastic facial features beneath her feet. “Pretty ugly cake. You coming-?” Zack leapt upwards and landed beside her. “Okay, then.”

Zack took a cross-legged seat, careful not to brush up too close. “Did you play here as a kid?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Mom would bring me.” She was still looking around. 

“Yeah, uh, she told me you guys used to go on walks around the place when you were little.”

“Until I was old enough to go on walks by myself,” Aerith said. She wrapped her skirt around her legs and tucked the hem in at the ankles. 

Zack felt one foot shaking and he was sure Aerith could feel it too. “She said you don’t go anymore, though.” Aerith turned her head away. Zack’s foot was vibrating the whole slide now. “Look, I know things are… complicated. I’m not sure how, but I know they are.”

Aerith shook her head. “What do you know?”

Zack’s foot hit the plastic with a thump. He put a hand out and stopped it, and took a deep breath. “I know Shinra keeps a Turk watch on you. I know they call you a ‘specimen’.”

Aerith sighed. “Told you all that at headquarters, did they?”

“Yeah, while they were grilling me under a light,” Zack said, “and that was after they were done cutting pieces off of me to put under a microscope or something.” Aerith shuddered. “Shi-oot, are you cold? Should we go back?”

“I’m not cold,” Aerith said, but she curled up into a tighter ball anyway. “It never really gets cold down here, not enough air flow.”

“Not even a little breeze from the plains?”

She looked at him like he was a damned fool. He was starting to suspect he was. She sighed and set her chin on her knees. “There are walls. Thick walls under the edge of the plate, going all the way around.”

“Walls,” Zack said. “But there are doors. I’ve seen them.”

“They only open for certain people,” Aerith said. “Shinra mostly. Not anyone here.”

Zack looked around him, at the filthy rusted playground, the uneven dirt, the trash all around, the buildings nearby patched together out of scraps and hope, and at the plate, beyond the artificial lights, the thick, dark plate, blocking out the sky. “You’re trapped,” he said, grasping at something that felt too big to understand. "You’re all trapped here.”

“Oh, no, we’re not trapped,” Aerith said, light and airy and in some kind of pain. “We can always look for Shinra work, you see. Power plant workers, sanitation, female… entertainment. Anything messy and dangerous. There’s always a need.”

Zack swallowed. “And you can get out that way?”

Aerith shrugged. “You can go up. Take the train in the morning and back down in the evening, save enough to pay for some school for the kids, and maybe they can work behind a desk instead, and move you into a small place on the plate one day.”

“That’s the plan?”

“That’s the plan,” Aerith said, sighing. “I don’t know anyone who’s actually done it. But I mean, there’s always the military. That’s a quick way up, assuming you don’t die.”

“And I’m guessing none of that is for you,” Zack said. He was itching under the collar, hot and sweaty. 

“I like living. And I’m okay down here,” Aerith said. “If I ever get to go out, I’ll go out, you can bet on that. But I’d rather not have to go up first. There’s nothing good up there.”

“Not even sunshine?” Zack asked. “A little rain? Clear blue skies?”

“Not for ‘Specimens’,” she replied. She shuddered again and looked down. “Nothing good ever came from the skies for me.”

Zack straightened his legs out to fight the hollow feeling in his gut. “Want to keep walking? Find the people, check out the nightlife, that kind of thing?”

“I’d really rather avoid the crowds,” Aerith said. “They’re being weird.”

“Still going on about the light, huh?” Zack thought of the people spilling through the church door. “Do they still think you made it? Even after Shinra said it was a mako burst.” 

“Shinra says a lot of things. Nobody pays too much attention down here.” She turned around and started making her way off the slide. “Is that why they sent you down here?” she asked, pausing halfway on the ladder. “To find out what I know. Cuz I don’t know anything, I’m telling you right now.”

“Nobody sent me.” Zack held his hands up in defence. “I don’t know anything either. I think the Turks figured that out soon enough.”

Aerith dropped the rest of the way, landing in the dirt with a soft thump. “Then why are you here?” 

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Zack said. “Look, if it makes you this uncomfortable, I’ll go.”

Aerith was glancing around again, checking all the corners, examining the perimeter. “I’d like to walk, if you want to,” she said. “I just don’t know where to go.”

Zack gave it some thought. “Is there a marketplace?”

“Crowded.”

“A diner?”

“Crowded.”

“How about the church?”

“Oh, Gaia.” Aerith leaned her head back against the slide. “That’s crowded too. It’s the worst of the lot.”

Zack scuffed his boot in the sand. “People still looking for the light?”

“Something like that. I don’t know, it’s weird. It’s like, everybody around us had some kind of… experience. All that talk about angels singing. But I don’t remember anything like that.”

“Me neither.” Zack joined her leaning back against the slide. “You don’t go back much, do you?”

Aerith shook her head. “Just one time. People were lighting candles, and there’s a painting of a woman with a halo in there. It’s not quiet in there anymore and everything is weird.” She looked down at the dirt, tired as anyone Zack had ever seen. “It’s one thing to have Turks keeping an eye on me. I don’t need the whole of Midgar knowing.”

“What’s to know?” Zack asked, then held his hands up again to stop any protest. “I mean, you have more magic than most people, like your mother said. Nothing wrong with that, right?”

Aerith looked off into the distance. “No. Nothing wrong with it.” She turned away, but Zack caught the way her face crumpled before it went out of sight.

“Hey, uh, you want to just go back home?” he asked. Aerith whimpered and sniffled a little. Zack wished he had a hanky to lend her or something, but he had never been a hanky kind of guy. But Aerith got over whatever it was pretty quick. She stood and turned around, and her nose was only a little bit red. 

“I want to check on my flowers,” she said. “They took all the other ones.”

“Yeah, I’d been wondering about that,” Zack said. “So, we’re sneaking back into church?”

“Something like that.” Aerith took his hand and led him down the path. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

The old church doors were fully open now, and there was steady traffic in and out. They slid in the back and tried to blend in. There was standing room only, every pew full. People stood around in clusters, some humming, some swaying, most locked in silent prayer. There were candles everywhere and at the center, in a dried out patch of earth, a street preacher stood before a crude painting, selling her flowers. 

Zack cringed and stepped backwards. Aerith stood straight as her staff, then something snapped. She went red and marched right up, arms swinging. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she shouted. A path cleared up in the aisle for her, startled by the sound. Zack had no choice but to follow close behind. 

“Young woman,” the preacher began, keeping up his act, “have you come seeking the blessings of the maiden?”

“Maiden?” Zack said, stopping to take a better look at the man.

“I came to see what the hell you did to my flowers,” Aerith said, looking around. Piles and piles of wilting blooms lay around the altar, being traded for fifty gil a piece. The whispers went around the room and the preacher’s face changed. 

“My child,” he said, “these blooms are the blessing of the maiden.”

“They’re the flowers you stole from my backyard,” Aerith said.

“Uh, Aerith?” Zack whispered, feeling the crowd press closer, but Aerith only marched forward, stepping into the dirt and getting in the street priest’s face.

“You stole them,” she said. “There’s no blessings here, they’re just flowers. My flowers! And you’re taking people’s money and giving them what? You’re despicable.”

“Her flowers,” people whispered. “They’re her flowers.” 

“Ooookay, then,” Zack said, backing up into Aerith. She turned on the fawning crowd.

“I can’t believe you all would be so stupid,” she said, practically spitting the last word. “You’re below plate people. Why are you giving this guy your money? You barely even buy them from me at one gil.”

“They’re not just flowers, Miss,” an old woman said at the fore. “They’re blessings.”

Aerith looked back at the sneering man. She looked him up and down. “If there are any blessings here,” she said, turning back to the crowd, “who says they’re his to give?”

Zack circled around to stand behind her. “He doesn’t look like any maiden I ever saw.”

“It’s her,” someone shouted. 

“And it’s him! The dead one!” said someone else. Zack for the first time felt worried on his own behalf. The rising cries cut through Aerith’s haze of rage. She raised her head, not shy and hiding anymore but staring right into their faces, daring them to step out of line. 

“What’s he selling, really?” she asked, teeth clenched and face aglow with anger. “What is he selling that you’re giving him money that could pay your bills, and feed your children?” 

“He told us the blessing would bring a better time,” someone said from the back, the same man who had recognized Zack.

The old woman in front of Aerith stared at the drooping lily in her hand, a dear purchase in her likely circumstances. Dark, gnarled fingers cupped the sad, petals and cradled the bruised stem. “He said the angels wanted us to bide our time,” she said, more to the flower than to the crowd. “He said it was a sign that soon there would be mako enough for all, as soon as the Company could bring it up. All we had to do was wait.”

Zack narrowed his eyes and he saw Aerith have the same thought. They both turned on the snivelling preacher man, a little too clean and well-fed beneath his hasty cotton robes. “You’re a plant,” Aerith said, stepping into the man’s space. 

Zack wanted to step back, to find some room, get some space, but the crowd was at his back and all around now, with candles and rising rage. “He’s a plant,” he said to himself, then said it again. “He’s a plant. Shinra saw the unrest rising and they sent you here to pacify, didn’t they?” Something twisted inside Zack, a discomfort worse than any bright lamp. 

The preacher backed up more, stumbling as he knocked over the painted angel. “Look, I didn’t mean any harm. You can have your flowers back. I didn’t know they were yours, they brought them to me when the ones here ran out.” He reached into his pockets and flung a handful of bills at the crowd. “Take the money, I don’t care.” 

Gil rained down around Aerith but she had gone still, her anger icy cold. “Dumb move, Tseng, dumb move.” She turned and began to walk away.

“Miss,” a woman called from behind her. “What do we do with him?” 

Aerith shrugged. “Doesn’t matter much to me as long as Shinra pays in the end. And don’t step on the flowers.”

Zack followed her down the aisle. The crowd parted and flowed around them, rushing to the altar. The march became a stampede and there was a sharp cry of pain behind them. Aerith’s head jerked up but she did not turn around. Instead she forged ahead and did not stop until they were out the door. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

There were two more reactor bombings by the end of the week, and another reactor that mysteriously malfunctioned. Above plate, things were getting difficult. There was no one working the pumps at the fuel stations for the cars, so the trains got overcrowded. Garbage pickup experienced unforeseen difficulties and the posh boulevards began to stink. Pipelines sprang leaks. Wires got crossed. Buses didn’t run on time. Everything was breaking down. 

Aerith sat out in her shorn backyard, wondering what she could salvage out of the flattened grass and the shredded stems. Life tried so hard out here. Down here. She sat on top of the short ramp, feet angling down, and stared at the empty flowerbeds. Zack had offered to leave his number but she did not have a phone yet. And with the trains running off schedule there was no telling when he would be able to come back, if he ever did. Heck, he probably wasn’t even in Midgar anymore. SOLDIERs did have work to do. 

She jumped down the rest of the way, thinking too late to check around for any Turk who might catch a glimpse up her skirt. But they had been scarce on the ground of late, too busy with damage control up above plate. She walked around the tight circular path, contemplating her next move. She had not gone out again since Zack’s visit, but she had promised her mother she would, soon enough. The crowd had not been dangerous, not particularly. Not to her. She heard the cry behind her back again and thought of the citywide destruction that had come after it. The news played it every night now. Life on the Plate was falling apart because the ground it rested on had become unstable. 

Aerith flopped down into the grass. There wasn’t much she could do about that. People made their own choices in life, as much as they had room to anyway. And what she wanted to do more than anything now was figure out how to salvage her flowers. She reached her hands out to the snapped stems around her, and listened. 

They weren’t dead. The leaves were shredded and the flowers were gone but the bulbs were still whole beneath the earth. The light was still in them. They just needed a little encouragement. Aerith reached out with her whole self and called to them, asking them to grow. 

When she came to the lights overhead were a shade dimmer, and lilies waved in full bloom all around, white and yellow and whole. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“What the hell is she doing?” Veld said. “Get somebody down there and stop her. Round her up. We can’t afford patience anymore.”

“Sir,” Tseng said, “we have no direct proof that she was behind it this time.”

“Who else would it be, Tseng?” Veld said. His face softened. “I know… you have feelings on the matter, but there is no room for sentiment here.” He gestured to the news feeds that never stopped now. “Look around. The city’s coming apart at the seams. Half the populace has a new religion. The other half thinks these lights are a justification for destruction. And you saw what they did to our man on the inside.”

Tseng nodded and sighed. Veld stood behind him and put a hand on the young Turk’s shoulder. “The city matters more than one girl, Tseng. We can’t function if she’s out there, raising the rabble to religious hysteria. This city needs its people to stay where they are or it doesn’t work.”

Tseng stepped out from Veld’s grasp and went over to the window. There were people in the streets, looking as small as ants. He could see them pouring out of offices and shops, flooding the streets. They would gather where the light had been, chasing the voices of long gone angels. Tseng thought he could still hear the song. “Do what you have to do, Sir,” he said, “I have someplace to be.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

Zack shared a chopper with Sephiroth on the way back to Midgar. He sat strapped in and hunched over, the weight of his new sword heavy on his back and worse in his heart. A sudden mid-flight lurch broke the maddening circle of his thoughts and gave them an excellent view of the light that went up to the sky. Sephiroth went to the open door, leaning out as far as he could for a better look. “Whoa,” Zack said, joining him. 

“Indeed,” Sephiroth said, and turned away to study his phone. 

Zack stayed at the door, chest heaving with breath. The light faded back down to Sector five, vanishing below the plate. “Huh. I wonder who died this time.”

“We have orders,” Sephiroth said, putting his phone away. “We are to go below plate immediately and quell the unrest by any means necessary.”

Zack turned. “By any… what are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Sephiroth said. “The Company is.” He stared at his phone’s unlit screen. 

“Are they… Do they want us to?”

“Kill civilians? They won’t say so, not in words. But if we feel threatened, we have permission to take necessary steps.”

“Necessary steps,” Zack repeated. “Sir, we don’t have to go that far. I know where the light comes from. I mean, I know the girl.”

“So I’d heard,” Sephiroth said, and stared at his phone again. “I can give you twenty-four hours.”

“What?”

“To stop this this unrest from becoming a riot,” Sephiroth said. “If you know the source, if you think you can influence her…”

“Hey, she’s not responsible for any rioting, trust me,” Zack said. “She doesn’t even believe all this magic stuff is happening. I’m not sure I believe it, but then I didn’t exactly see the first one.”

Sephiroth pulled a parachute from storage and began strapping Zack into it. “Whatever you think, whatever she thinks, you need to get down there and end things peacefully if you can. Twenty-four hours, Zack. I can’t give you any more.” He slapped Zack on the back and kicked him out the door.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

After Zack was done metaphorically shitting his pants, he pulled the cord on his chute, managed to angle for one of the vent spaces in the plate and landed near Wall Market. “My word,” drawled a girl all done up in glitter, calling to her bee friends. “It’s raining men.”

“Just the one,” Zack said as the parachute smothered him. He fought his way out, exiting the silk to find himself surrounded by several glittery and very enterprising ladies, all reaching out to give him a hand. He tittered and backed away. “Thanks, but I really have to go.”

“Aw, what’s your rush? Can’t you stay a while?” One of them winked at him and another looked coy. 

“Uh, I’m meeting a girl,” he said, worming his way out. The Honeybees shared a look.

“Oh, a girl,” said the first. 

“Well, you go on, sugar,” said another, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “Just remember where we are in case it doesn’t work out.”

“Uh, heh, yeah.” Zack cleared his throat, unbuckled the chute and ran. 

The girls watched him go, arms around each other and sighing. “Crying shame. That one was actually cute.”

“Yeah.” They turned to go. “Damn it, why is business so slow?”

-.-.-.-.-.-

He arrived at Aerith’s house in rather worse shape than he landed. Twice angry drunken mobs had run after him on spotting his uniform, and he couldn’t find his wallet anymore. Lucky thing he never had all that much in it, he supposed. He arrived at the house breathless and damp and with no time to lose. When he found the door open and the room empty his heart dropped. “Aerith,” he cried out.

“What?” she called back, sitting up from the grass. “Hey, you came. Great. Mom should be back soon. Want to stay for dinner?” She was up the ramps and down the ladder before Zack could finish catching his breath. 

“I just,” he said, “I came to check on you.”

“Did you, now?” One brown eyebrow raised in his direction. “With lipstick on your cheek.”

“Lipstick?” Zack scrubbed at where the girl had kissed him. “It’s nothing, a Honeybee kissed me.” Two brown eyebrows now, and Zack realized his mistake. “It was just a friendly kind of thing, I didn’t go in.”

Aerith rolled her eyes. “That does cost less, yes.”

Zack stopped scrubbing and huffed. “I only came to see if you’re okay, because you did that thing again.”

Aerith’s face fell. “What?”

“The light,” Zack said. “I was in the air, in a helicopter. I saw it this time. Right about here.” Aerith began to hyperventilate. “Oh no, Aerith, please, no, it’s okay, it’ll be okay. Aw, damn, come inside.” He led her into the house and set her on a chair. “Let me get you a drink, okay?” He found more of the powdery-tasting juice and poured her a cup. She took it and had a small sip, then sat with the cup in her lap, clasped tight in both hands.

“You didn’t know this time either, did you?” he asked. 

Aerith shook her head. “It’s like I can’t control it anymore. I don’t know what it was that happened with you but now it’s just a rush every time.” She looked up. “Did the rest of the city see it too?”

“I think so. Have you been keeping up with the news?”

“Here and there.” She set the cup on her table. “Everything’s coming apart, looks like.”

Zack stooped down to look up at her. He set one hand on hers. “Look, I don’t want to alarm you, but Shinra thinks you’re responsible.”

She closed her eyes. “Of course they do.” She pulled her hands away. 

“I know you’re not out there inciting the mobs,” Zack said, “but things are getting serious, and orders are coming down to… quiet things.”

He had never known eyes could be so sharp. “So they sent you to bring me in, is that it? Was that all this was?” She got up out of the chair and paced the room. “Be nice, be friendly, send the cute, young one down to gain her trust, then bring her in.”

“No, nobody sent me,” Zack said. “I mean, Sephiroth did, but-“

“Oh, Sephiroth,” Aerith said. “The Number One SOLDIER, attack dog extraordinaire.”

“He sent me to talk to you so we don’t have to massacre the slums,” Zack said. He could hear his own heart in the silence that followed. “We got orders, stop the unrest by any means necessary. I told him maybe I could find you and… I don’t know. Just not have to go that far.”

She stared at him from across the room, jaw set and skirt gripped in her hands. “You’re not taking me in.”

Zack rubbed the spot in his sternum. “No,” he said, “I’m not taking you in.”

She drew a breath and leaned on the stair rail. “So what’s the plan?”

Zack got up and took the seat she had left behind. “I don’t know. We didn’t really have one.”

Aerith scoffed. “Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do.” She sat on the other chair. “Did you hear angels singing?”

“No, I think we were too far away.”

“Shame. Wish I could hear angels singing. Everybody says it’s so nice.”

Elmyra came bustling through the door, ruffled and smeared with dirt. “Thank the Planet, you’re home, Aerith. And you too, Zack, it’s good to see you.”

“Ma’am,” Zack said, tipping an imaginary hat. 

“It’s madness out there,” Elmyra said. “I barely made it out of the store. Turn on the news.”

Aerith groaned but turned the dial on the old TV set. The picture was flickering more than usual. “Hang on, I gotta jiggle the ears a bit.” Zack went over to help and they took turns holding a pair of floppy rabbit ears in place so Elmyra could watch. 

“Got any tinfoil?” Zack whispered. “I heard if you put some on the ends it works better.”

“…people gathering in the streets,” said the reporter, cutting off any reply Aerith might have made. “Deep in what appears to be religious fervor. I am actually operating this camera myself because our cameraman Julio appears to be among them. Julio. Julio! Come on.”

Zack leaned over. It was a scene above plate, near one of the fountains. The crowd was thick, shoulder to shoulder, swaying and humming. The anchor filled the screen again, red lips standing out in the faded colors of the screen. “Thank you, Angela,” she said, collating papers. “We’ll be keeping you abreast of the situation as it develops. For now, let’s go to Carl in Sector Seven. Carl?”

From peaceful gathering, they went to a riot in progress. Carl was too close to the camera, pressed in by the screaming, racing crowds behind him. He shouted into the microphone but half of what he said was drowned out by the chants. ‘Down with Shin-ra! Down with Shin-ra!’ Chairs flew. Someone threw a shoe. The light in the street shattered and Carl went stumbling down. 

“Carl?” The news anchor said again. “Carl?” She put her serious face on. “Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to have lost that feed. More on this needless slum uprising when we have Carl on the air again.”

Aerith sniffed. “Needless. Those upper plate pricks.”

“Language, Aerith,” Elmyra said, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Turn it off.”

Aerith turned the dial again and Zack let go of the rabbit ears. Aerith went straight to a chair and sank into it, skirt flaring up and around before settling. “I didn’t do it,” she said. “I didn’t make anybody riot.”

Zack stood behind her. “I know you didn’t. But maybe you can stop it?”

She looked up, and her eyes were the oldest he had ever seen. “What do you expect me to do?”

He scratched the back of his head. “I dunno, really. Talk to them?”

It was Elmyra’s turn to scoff. “You want my daughter to talk to that mob?”

Zack shrugged. “It worked the last time, kinda. They believed her in the church.”

Aerith went ashy. “They believed me.” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “They believed me. Oh, Gaia, I told them Shinra had to pay.” She began to hyperventilate again. 

“Easy, easy, girl,” Elmyra said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “It’s not your fault. They still have their own minds to make up.”

“Not when they're washed right out their gourds,” Aerith said. “You saw them by the fountain. They looked just like the people in the church did. Stoned right out of their minds.”

“It’s the angel music,” Zack said. “At least that’s what I hear.”

Aerith sighed. “Mom, have you heard it.”

Elmyra’s lower lip stiffened. “A little. But love, since I brought you home, I’ve heard it every day.”

“What?” 

“I think I’m just used to it,” Elmyra said. “It’s strongest when you’re out among the flowers and it’s been getting stronger as you grow.”

Aerith sat back in her seat. Zack steadied it for her, bracing it with his body to prevent the wobble. “How come you never told me?” Aerith asked. 

“I wasn’t sure it was you at first,” Elmyra said, “and then I didn’t want you to feel odd about it.”

“Well,” Aerith sighed and slumped, “thanks for trying.” Zack patted her shoulder and she did not stop him. He might have imagined her leaning into it though. She looked up at him. “So now what?”

It was a good thing he had his orders because he wasn’t sure he could have come up with a goal on his own. “Now we stop this riot,” he said.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He lent Aerith a bracelet for the trip out, and a barrier materia in case she needed it. “But I don’t know how to use materia,” she said as he fastened the bracelet on her wrist.

“You’ll probably figure it out,” he said. They both turned back and waved at Elmyra when they reached the end of the path. 

He did not have to tell her to take his hand. They held on to each other, mutual lifelines, and began to walk. They did not discuss a destination. Their feet turned towards the church. Lights had been shattered overhead, but Zack could see in the dark. People rushed past them, screaming slogans or just screaming. They had to dodge one homemade bomb, a flaming rag in a bottle of cheap liquor that shattered and burned out against Zack’s broad sword. His lip quivered at the soot and damage, but he kept the sword out after that as both shield and warning. They tightened their grip on each other and walked on. 

The church was bright and packed full. There were candles everywhere. “Good thing it’s stone,” Aerith said. “Place might burn down in all this madness.” The fervor inside was calmness compared to the pandemonium in the streets. The painted angel had been replaced with a better likeness, but still not a very good one. There was no priest now, no paid-off con man. Aerith looked around, taking in the changes in her second home. 

There was a ripple in the crowd near them, and the wave of recognition spread. Aerith held on tight to Zack’s hand and walked him up the aisle. The flowerpatch was still dead, all green plucked or trampled by the crowds. But she could feel the bulbs beneath the dirt, far below, waiting. 

She shook her head. Not now. Not again. She turned back to the crowds, listening to the whispers. They knew who she was, and who Zack was. They might be safe here. She looked out across the hall. Some faces she thought she recognized from the last time. The little old woman was not there. She took a deep breath and spoke. “What are you doing?”

“We’re waiting,” someone said at length, a young mother with two young children clinging to her knee.

“What for?” Zack asked. 

“For the men to come back,” said another.

“And half the women,” a bent old man said. 

“Anybody strong,” the mother said again, “with no children to watch.”

“What are they doing out there?”

“Well, just what you said, Miss, Ma’am,” the old man said. “We’re going to make Shinra pay.”

Zack felt Aerith’s hand shaking in his own. He squeezed a little, and she squeezed back. “I didn’t mean for all of this,” Aerith said. “Not the bombings. Not the breakdowns.”

“But why not?” It was the shopkeeper who sold cheap bread. “Why not? They deserve it, you know they do.”

Aerith closed her eyes, thinking of blood on concrete and a train whistle behind her. “Maybe they do,” she said, swaying to her own heart’s beat. “They do. But nobody here deserves what they’ll do to us if this goes through.” 

“What are they going to do?” said the old man, “Kill us? They’re already killing us down here.” 

The young mother nodded, holding her children close. “Faster or slower,” she said, touching a homemade locket at her throat. “At least it would be for something.”

Zack’s phone rang. He had to sheath his sword to take the call, spinning away slightly, but he never let go of Aerith’s hand. “What something?” Aerith said. “Revenge?”

“Well, why not?” 

All eyes were on her and she felt the weight of them. She could see helicopter search lights high up in the distance through the hole in the roof. The choppers disappeared past the jagged edges of the beams, moving out of sight. A sea of hopeful faces awaited her, lit from beneath by candlelight. She swallowed. Her left knee buckled a little but she stiffened the other and stood her ground. “I guess I should tell you that revenge isn’t the way? That it won’t bring closure, or make life better, something like that. But I can’t.” She choked. “I want them to pay. I do, I want Shinra to hurt and fall and lose everything. They deserve to lose everything.” A rogue tear dripped down her face and she wiped it away. 

“But those people up there, the ones gathering by the fountain, they’re not Shinra, not the real source. They’re not the cause. They’re stuck in it just like we are, playing Shinra’s stupid games. They don’t deserve to be hurt any more than we do.”

“Then what should we do?” asked the shopkeeper. 

“I’ll tell you what we need to do,” Zack said, flipping his phone shut. “Shinra’s planning to drop one of the plates to crush Avalanche. We need to get clear.”

The panic was immediate. “What do we do? Where can we go?”

“Which plate?” the mother screamed. “Which plate?”

The old man came close, as close to Aerith as he dared. “You still think they don’t deserve to pay, girlie?”

Aerith stared at him, starching her spine. “Whichever plate they drop, the people on top are going to die too.”

“Well, now what?” asked the shopkeeper. “Come on, Angelface, you must have a clue. You started all of this.”

Aerith shook her head. “I don’t want people dead.” Blood. Blood on the concrete. Train whistles. “I don’t want anybody else dead.”

“Well, what do you want?” the shopkeeper snapped, and Aerith snapped too. Her head shot up, glaring at the dark plate above. 

“I want out,” she said. The slightest stray gust blew chaff around the room. “Not up. Out. Out of Midgar. Away from Shinra. I want out, it’s all I ever wanted. I can hear the wind calling my name.”

The wind and the people took her words to the street, gathering the angry mob out of Sector Seven. Shouts sprang up about a falling plate, and the Angel Girl, who wanted to leave. “We’ll all leave,” one man shouted, firing a gun into the air. Aerith pressed close to Zack as the people rushed past. 

“We have to get Mom,” she said. “I don’t know if there’s time.”

“There has to be, it’s not that far.” Zack looked at her, lit more by candles and torches now than the aqua-tinted mako lights. “Do you trust me?”

“I guess,” she said, “much as I trust myself now anyway.” Zack cocked his head at her and she shrugged. “It’s not a lot right now, but what else have I got.” 

Zack pouted. “Well, I guess I can work with that,” he said, grabbing his sword and swinging Aerith onto his back. “Now hang on.”

He used all his speed, every bit, to dodge through the flame lit darkness with her on his back, piggybacking her back to the house. They found Elmyra in a tizzy, packing a bag. “There’s no time, Mom,” Aerith said. “We have to go. Shinra’s going to drop a plate sector.”

“Which one?”

“Suspected Avalanche headquarters,” Zack said. “Only problem is they’re not sure where that is. I couldn’t get any more information than that.”

Elmyra rolled her eyes. “Might as well drop the whole damn plate, then. Crush the city. Start over fresh.”

“I’d like that,” Aerith said, sitting down and leaning hard on the table. “The fresh start, that is.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” Zack said. “Where do we go from here? Back to the church?”

“We might just be safe here,” Elmyra said, looking around her home. “Shinra wants Avalanche gone, not Aerith. They know where she is.”

“But they might just as well send a helicopter to get me and crush everybody else,” Aerith said. “I saw two overhead at the church.”

“Is there anything on the news?” Zack asked. He held the rabbit ears without complaint. 

“Oh my goodness,” Elmyra said. “They can’t… they can’t be serious.”

Carl was back, with a crude bloodied bandage around his head. There was a crack in the camera but it still worked. “Kathy, the mob has left Sector Seven at this point and are actually all gathered at the gate in Sector Five. There’s chanting, lots of shouting, oh, Goddess, there’s fire, they’re throwing some kind of incendiary device. I don't know where they got these things. Oh, Kathy, there’s gunfire.” The screen filled with static and the camera went back to the studio.

The Anchor wasn’t in her chair. “No,” she was saying, arguing with somebody off screen. “I have to go. I want to go. I can hear it, do you understand? I can hear the singing.” The feed cut off, going to the test signal and its accompanying whine. Zack turned the TV off before anyone asked. 

“Which way to the gate?” he asked. 

Aerith rose. “I’ll show you.”

-.-.-.-.-.-

They made their way out together, the three of them. Elmyra insisted on taking ‘just a few things’. She and Aerith had to split the load in the end, but Zack assured them it was okay. He could swing a sword well enough to watch all three of them. Aerith had taken her staff, but it was more use as a walking stick now, feeling out the ground ahead. 

They found the riot right up against the wall. Gunfire and cheap flares had made not one mark. The stronger among the crowd were ramming it with their own bodies. The sounds of impact came again and again, an unsteady, unbroken rhythm. Aerith nudged Zack with her boot. “Can you lift me up again, please? I want to see.”

Zack nodded and boosted her up onto his shoulder. Aerith sat on one pauldron and watched as a smear of red grew on the clear wall. “They’re going to kill themselves,” she said. 

“Better than having Shinra do it for them,” Zack said. 

“There’s got to be something…” Her eyes landed on Zack’s giant new sword. He saw her gaze and nodded. Aerith closed her eyes, took a deep breath and shouted. “Hey!”

It took less than a minute, recognition spreading across the crowd. She heard the term ‘Angel Girl’ pop up nearby once or twice, and Zack telling her mother to stick close. And in two breaths the entire crowd was silent, waiting. She took a deep breath again. “I’m not an angel,” she said, gripping Zack’s steadying hand tight. She lifted her chin. “I’m a Cetra, and we have a better idea.”

Zack set her down and they walked together, all three of them. Helicopters buzzed ahead, searchlights fading against the coming of day. The crowd cleared for them as it had before, the Angel Girl, the Cetra and the Dead Boy. “I’m not dead now, thanks,” Zack muttered as they went. They crossed the inner circle, a group of muscled, hardened fighters, possibly the infamous Avalanche for all Aerith knew. 

“Let us try,” she said, and they made room. Aerith stepped back, guiding Elmyra out of the swinging range. Zack looked up at the tall plexisteel wall, reaching up almost to the plate itself. Not a lot of air flow, Aerith had said. That was about to change. 

He took his sword in both hands and pressed his forehead to the blade. “Here’s honor,” he said, voice breaking. And he swung. The first hit glanced off the wall. The second made a scratch. The third turned the scratch into a crack, and Zack was sweating. On the fourth swing the crack spidered out, and a tall man stopped Zack with a hand on his back. “You’ve done enough, SOLDIER. This is our fight too.” He turned back to his fighters. “Alright, people, on my count.”

Zack dodged out of the way as all assembled took up a spot. “Now,” the big man shouted, and the fighters charged. The crack expanded on impact, growing upwards like strange lightning. “Again,” the big man shouted, and one half of the wall shifted past the next. 

“Again,” he roared, and the whole crowd pressed forward, flowing around Aerith and Zack, with Elmyra on her knees, sheltering between them. The wall fragmented and a large section went crashing down. There was a rush through the gap, over the piece still stuck in the ground. People flooded the wastelands around the city and spread like spring thaw across the plains. The strongest and most able manned both sides of the gap, helping others up and through. 

“Miss,” said someone tugging at Aerith’s hem. It was the little old woman who had bought a flower for fifty gil. “Miss, you should go through. We’re going to need you.”

Aerith shook her head. “No, you don’t.”

“But you should go.”

The plain winds came through the gap, stirring her hair. She leaned into it, eyes closed, listening. When she opened her eyes again, it was to move forward. Elmyra went with her. Zack trailed behind. 

There were hands, so many hands, reaching out to touch her and not daring, not with her SOLDIER boy back from the dead right behind her, sword still in hand. There were hands offered to help her step up to the gap and she refused them all, grabbing the thick wall and lifting herself up and through. She glided on while Zack helped Elmyra over, following something on the wind. 

They walked together on the plains, on land as dead as the flowerbed in her church had become. More so even. There was no life beneath. All had been drained. Nothing was left but the people forging their way towards the green, the old and the young, store owners and beggars, fighters and gang members armed to the teeth, and girls in makeup and glitter, dressed for a different kind of war. An explosion rocked the ground beneath them, throwing some to their feet. Behind them, metal creaked and groaned, and a cloud of smoke and flame rose up to fill the space they had left behind.

“Hades, they really did it,” said a very young woman, balancing a child on her hip. Her glittery friend in matching black and yellow put an arm around her shoulder and stroked the child’s head while they stared.

“I hope everybody got out that sector in time,” Elmyra said, shaking her head. 

Aerith stood frozen on the spot, eyes closed against the death of the place that had been so long her home and her cage. Zack nudged her hand with his own and she took it, looking at him with tired ancient eyes. They walked away from the shadow of the city, and its endless night. Dawn had brought the sun, and they walked right into it, not caring where they were headed as long as it was away. 

“Don’t stare straight at the sun now,” Zack warned, and Aerith laughed a little. The smile on her face was the prettiest thing he had seen in a while.

“I never saw this in real life before,” she said, looking up. “Fluffy clouds and blue skies, and all this bright light.”

“So, some good things do come from the sky?” Zack asked.

“I guess so.” Aerith glanced away but the smile grew. “But I’m still on the fence about you.”


End file.
